Diego Corrales couldn't beat Joel Casamayor or the scales.

Casamayor won the WBC lightweight title Saturday night with a split decision win over Corrales, who was forced to give up the belt a day earlier when he failed to make the 135-pound weight limit.

In a fight that almost didn't happen because Corrales couldn't make the weight, Casamayor scored the cleaner punches and more of them to win both the vacated title and the rubber match between the two fighters.

Casamayor won 116-111 on one scorecard and 115-112 on a second. A third judge had Corrales ahead 114-113. The Associated Press had Casamayor winning 116-112.

``I know I won,'' Casamayor said. ``But I was a little concerned when it went to the cards.''

Corrales, who said he hadn't eaten for four days before weighing in at 139 pounds at Friday's weigh-in, started slow and never seemed to really find his range against the former Cuban Olympic champion.

``I thought I boxed really well,'' Corrales said. ``How are you going to win running away?''

Casamayor frustrated Corrales from the opening round on, and even a disputed knockdown in the fifth round couldn't help Corrales overcome the crafty left-hander's style. He won the first three rounds on all three scorecards, a margin Corrales couldn't make up in the later rounds.

Referee Kenny Bayless ruled that Corrales knocked down Casamayor in the fifth round, but replays showed the two men merely got their feet mixed up. Casamayor got up immediately and spread his arms open in disbelief

``It wasn't a solid knockdown, but it was a knockdown,'' Corrales said. ``The rules say if you put a guy down its a knockdown.''

Corrales had to part of his US$1.2 million payday to Casamayor so the fight would still go on after he didn't make weight. He was also fined $240,000 by the Nevada Athletic Commission, and lost his WBC lightweight title before even stepping into the ring.

Trainer Joe Goossen said he was concerned about the health of his fighter, who had eaten nothing but ice chips until after the weigh-in. But once the fight went on, Goossen said he thought Corrales did enough to win.

``There is something to be said about not eating for five days,'' Goossen said. ``You wouldn't do that to a terrorist.''

The two fighters knew each other well after splitting their two earlier fights. In the first, Casamayor stopped Corrales in the sixth round of a wild fight, while Corrales won a narrow 12-round decision in the second.

Casamayor seemed to know Corrales better, though, and fought a strategic fight early, moving in and out and forcing Corrales to follow him around the ring. Corrales seemed slow to get off and didn't land much of any consequence in the early rounds.

Both fighters began finding their mark more in the middle rounds, and Corrales began landing more punches in the later rounds. But it wasn't enough to pull out a decision and Casamayor left the ring with the title that Corrales had been forced to vacate.

Both fighters complained about dirty tactics on the part of the other. Goossen claimed Casamayor intentionally head-butted Corrales on several occasions, and Corrales hit Casamayor with a few low blows in the late rounds.

A disconsolate Corrales, who was on the other side of the weight issue in his last two scheduled fights with Jose Luis Castillo, said he would probably move up to welterweight for his next fight.

``I overstayed my time (as a lightweight) and that is that,'' he said.

Corrales lost one fight when he went ahead with a fight with an overweight opponent, and refused to fight a second one when Castillo came in overweight for the second straight time.

The tables were turned in this fight, however, with Corrales being the one who came in at 139 pounds, despite claiming he didn't eat in the four days before Friday's weigh-in in an attempt to make the 135-pound limit.